Saturday commute cxlix: Pursuit and the genial element

 2017 has given cause to reconsider

 the vulnerabilities of the elements,

 as much as their inherent integrity,

 fickle as well as constant, which can

 deflect as well as temper one's way

 in them. They seem to constitute such

 a system, of their own, as to tempt

 understanding to treat them as predict-

 able. Affections, for example - of ex-

 perience as ancient as a bath, if not

 of sustenance, itself - are even less

 the unvolatile flux of our way in them 

 than their system is inviolate. They

 are subject to other systems, as much

 as reflections of them, in their way.

i, ii  Salvatore Scaglione

        2016

Suppose it were Friday cxlv: With you all the way

                

                                 
                                      British Legation
                                      Belgrade
                                      15 February [1951]

               Dear Anne,

               A brief line to let you know that Eve

               is coming to London for a fortnight in

               order to scout around and see what she

               thinks about having the baby there; I've

               told her to drop you a line and perhaps

               when she comes to Oxford you'd be good

               enough to give her tea and tell her 

               roughly what the form is ..

               There is no news to give you much that

               you don't see in the papers; ah yes! I

               have struck a great blow for poetry. 

               While in Trieste I found, hiding in a

               garage, too big to be used, a perfectly

               gigantic car - a Horch: the German Rolls-

               Royce. Eight cylinder, forty horse power.

               It used to belong to Goering and then to

               the general commanding the area. I bought

               it for a song and brought it back. It is

               lovely, silver-grey, sleek and with a fun-

               ny old-fashioned look. It makes you feel

               like a film star of the twenties. We call

               it Hermann and are planning one mad summer

               of plutocracy in it before the war breaks

               out [rumored, with the USSR]. As a matter

               of fact you have often seen Hermann in the

               newsreels - do you remember the entry into

               Prague etc with one of the big shots stand-

               ing up in the front and giving the boys the

               salute. That's how I go to the office now.

               Everyone is speechless with rage, and few

               will speak to me these days. But the Bel-

               grade police force is deeply respectful.

               There are two horns on the car, bass and

               tenor. I say that I've struck a blow for

               poetry because it is an ideal poet's car:

               too large for any purpose except triumphal

               entries, and so expensive to run that only

               a lunatic would buy such a thing. I shall

               sell it to Tito when I leave. He already

               has one but not as nice as mine. Wish you

               could come out and admire it.

               

                               Love 

                                    

                                    Larry

                                    

Lawrence Durrell

Spirit of Place

  Letters and Essays

  on Travel

Alan G. Thomas, editor

Leete's Island Books, 1969©

New Haven, Connecticut

Alabama goes voting ii

Our morning news brings sad evidence
of an apostasy in Alabama's defrocked
Judge Roy Moore, appealing an adverse
turn in his fate to a secular venue,
a State circuit court in Montgomery.
Why he didn't go straight to his burn-
ing bush for relief from democracy,
is not for one to speculate; but the
humiliation this must bring to his
flock surely must incur our sympathy.
Had they hidden so, only to be seen?

Chistmas Eve rising

           Ye Mists and Exhalations, that now rise,

           From hill or steaming lake, dusky or grey,

           Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold

           ..

If one were to imagine all

the capabilities of language

in advance, it's doubtful if

we'd reach Milton. On Christ-

mas Eve I tend to keep a com-

forting practice, of sitting

up with a snifter of Scotch

to read from Dryden's Aeneid,

but poetry comes up earlier

to me this year, as pressing

its case with morning coffee.

I spent the previous evening,

tossing and turning over where

I had read of the impressions

conveyed to me by this anony-

mous photograph at an elegant

website; but as is often the

case with me, this is why my

dog and I go out upon a dawn,

to rebuild as with the day.

The rather wonderful British

scholar, Alexandra Harris, re-

minds us that John Milton's

Morning Hymn in Book V of his

Paradise Lost was the first po-

etical work ever cited by Tur-

ner in a canvas he presented

to the Royal Academy (1798),

which may or may not have en-

tered Wordworth's mind as he

read from it to Dorothy, over-

looking the valley of Brathay,

"[when] it seemed we had nev-

er before felt deeply the pow-

er of the Poet" (1810).

If there had seemed to be dis-

couragements in power's resort

to language in this year, I'd

not pretend that Milton were

necessary, for allaying them.

Anyone with our slenderer ac-

quaintance of its protections,

has been obliged to heed them.

But this was a poet who plain-

ly believed it of poetry, that

dawn is its manifesting moment.

Something like strength, more

than power, distinguishes this

perception and its fulfillment.

What one feels, is its nerve.

John Milton, a new winter mor-

ning, walking with one's dog.

John Milton

Paradise Lost

  V, 185-187

1667

Alexandra Harris

Weatherland

  Writers and Artists

  under English Skies

Thames & Hudson, 2015©

ii  Leonardo da Vinci

    A copse of trees

    Chalk on paper

    1502

    Collection HM Queen Elizabeth II